EFCC freezes over 300 accounts linked to illegal FX trading

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has frozen over 300 accounts linked to illicit foreign exchange (FX) trading.

Speaking in Abuja on Tuesday, Ola Olukoyede, EFCC’s chairman, said the agency secured a court order to freeze the accounts.

“We got an order to freeze those accounts imagine what would have happened if we didn’t seize those accounts,” he said.

“There are people in this country doing worse than Binance,” he said.

Olukoyede said over $15 billion passed through one of the platforms in the last year, which was not regulated by financial regulators.

The development comes a day after Kenya’s police service reportedly arrested Nadeem Anjarwalla, the Binance regional manager for Africa.

On March 22, Anjarwalla escaped from an Abuja guest house where he and Tigran Gambaryan, his colleague, had been kept by the federal government.

Anjarwalla was said to have escaped after guards led him to a nearby mosque for prayers during the Ramadan fast.

Anjarwalla and Gambaryan were charged with tax evasion and money laundering by the federal government. The duo were arrested and detained on February 28.

On February 27, 2024, Olayemi Cardoso, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said $26 billion passed through Binance Nigeria from unidentified sources in one year.

Cardoso said the apex bank was collaborating with different agencies, including the EFCC, the police, and the office of the national security adviser (NSA) to tackle illicit financial flows in the country.